


No Grand Plan, No Big Win.

by theleafpile



Category: Angel: the Series, Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kate's current job is based on Angel comics, Post-Season/Series 03, basically the events of NFA didnt happen cause they dont coincide with the Lucifer universe, timeline fudging for artistic purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 02:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleafpile/pseuds/theleafpile
Summary: Following the realization that her partner is the Devil, Chloe seeks advice from former L.A.P.D. detective Kate Lockley whose reputation for being interested in “otherworldly” cases eventually led to her dismissal from the force.





	No Grand Plan, No Big Win.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariaadagio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariaadagio/gifts).



> Say hello to my little ficlet. I've been on an Angel: The Series rewatch and thought, gee, Chloe Decker and Kate Lockley are pretty much the same character archetype, wouldn't it be neat if they could meet? This wouldn't get out of my head, so here it is :)

_Los Angeles, 2000_

The vodka was cheap. Tasteless, unless paint thinner had a taste. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not the burning sensation as it stripped away her insides, not the broken trophies and awards scattered on the floor, not her father’s picture she found unable to sweep off the shelf even in her rage. 

“Just be glad you’re father isn’t around to see this,” said the woman from I.A. And she was right. But Trevor Lockley wasn’t around because a vampire had sucked him dry, and - oh, yeah - those were real. Demons, vampires, hell, zombie cops - it was all real. Every bedtime story about a boogie man under the bed was true. 

It was all true.

Ergo the vodka. And the pills, which she swallowed by the dozen - sleeping pills, pain pills, weren’t they all the same? Meant to numb oneself to the onslaught of existence? - and no, it wasn’t because of her father’s horrible death, or her dismissal from the force, or because she didn’t know what to do other than being a cop. She’d seen so much death, and pain, and destruction. A fourteen year old girl lying in a pool of her own blood after a bad trick. Babies thrown in dumpsters. Kids dead from overdoses. 

“Couldn’t take the heat,” she spoke into the receiver. A suicide note if there ever was one, even if it was only to an answering machine. “That’s what they’re gonna say.”

And all the tragedy? All the heartbreak and agony?

“And you’re gonna feel all bad. Or maybe you won’t care. I won’t care either.”

It was evil, yes. But it wasn’t otherworldly. Supernatural. Demonic. She wished it was. It would be so much easier to blame those things that go bump in the night. 

“I won’t feel a damn thing.”

*

_Los Angeles, 2018._

“It’s all true.”

That thing in front of her - oh, it spoke with Lucifer’s voice, his sweet, soft, inquiring, concerned, heard-it-a-million-times-before question of “detective?” falling from lips that could barely be called such, red and blistered and bleeding all like the rest of his face. Those luscious, dark locks? Gone. The dark, penetrating eyes? Replaced by black and fiery red. The constant stubble, god even the skin - gone, gone, gone. 

“It’s all true,” because what else could be said? 

What else mattered?

“The other side of me,” he’d called it before she gave in and kissed him, and how many times had she told herself not to do that? How many times did she warn herself away from whatever brand of crazy he was? “It’s monstrous.”

Was that what stood in front of her now?

A monster?

*

_Los Angeles, 2000_

Death was cold.

And wet.

Surprisingly wet.

Kate came to with a gasp, fighting for breath beneath a spray of freezing water, held upright in the arms of a man who had no body warmth, no beating heart. 

And yet, somehow, it cared.

The world was a very strange place.

Still jobless, still purposeless, still alone in a glittering city of ten million people, Kate sat beside a dead man in a moonlit garden. “My whole life has been about being a cop,” she explained, numb to the words. “If I’m not a part of the force it’s like nothing I do means anything.”

“It doesn’t,” he told her. “Mean anything. The greater scheme, the big picture. Nothing we do matters. There’s no grand plan. No big win.”

*

_Los Angeles, 2018_

She couldn’t say he didn’t warn her.

Over and over. And over. Until his claims of being the Devil - the literal Son of God, Lord of Hell, god even his vanity license plate read “Fallen1” - became little more than an annoyance, a buzzing insect never quite in reach of a newspaper.

But the facts were there. The evidence she’d chosen to put aside for so long, attributing other meanings or ignoring it completely, needing to be a crap detective when it came to her partner’s many, many issues in order to be a good one out in the real world where it mattered.

Even from the moment they met he was brazen with his identity. He claimed to have been gunned down by the same drive by shooter that killed the young singer and yet sat at his piano, tinkling out tunes and being generally obnoxious. The evidence kept piling it up until it was nearly too many to count or think on, until all his weirdness was just how he was and how things worked now. Delusional? Maybe. Hypnotic? Possibly. Whatever Lucifer’s deal, it helped make her a better detective.

Using the Devil to help get bad guys off the street - that had to count for something, right?

*

_Los Angeles, 2000_

“You seem kind of chipper about that.” She couldn’t pose it as a question, but he read it all the same. This thing beside her with fangs always at the ready, just behind his teeth. A man with another face. A hidden face, reflecting the truth of what he was.

“If there’s no great glorious end to all this,” he explained, lightened, “if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”

So why was it so hard, in that moment, to see him as anything other than another lost soul searching for meaning in a cold and unfeeling universe? 

Could he be only a man? 

*

_Los Angeles, 2018_

Chloe reeled.

Did the fact that Lucifer’s been saying to her face, practically as brazen as a neon sign, that he was Satan himself for, oh, years, make any difference to her now? Should it have? Her world went topsy-turvy all the same. Upside down, inside out, tilt-a-whirl, carnival-ride, vomit-inducing, flipped on her head kind of deal until “up” was no longer a reality but merely another side in an endless screaming void.

For roughly eight seconds.

Lucifer paused in his step toward her, then brought a hand up to touch his face before staring, as she was, at the skin that once covered nimble pianist hands, hands she had watched play a hundred times, hands she had held in her own. By the time his eyes met hers again all was back to normal in a blink-and-you-miss-it flash of light that seemed to come from the man himself, leaving only Lucifer. _Her_ Lucifer. Her partner, confused and pained. Then determined. He took another step forward.

She took a step back.

It was going to take some getting used to, and she was going to need help.

 

_Six Weeks Later_

Unsurprisingly, the former department pariah was not an easy woman to track down. Chloe had only ever heard the name Kate Lockley from her dad, who had heard stories of a detective getting herself mixed up in god-knows-what, but Chloe didn’t care then about interdepartmental police matters. Why should she? She was young enough to believe the world was a certain way, where bad guys got taken off the streets by good guys, and naive enough not to question where all the bad guys kept coming from. 

Until, one day, a bad guy killed the best guy she ever knew, and everything changed.

That was then. Times were different now. Now Chloe knew she had only scratched the surface of what could be out there, and was floundering in it. Her world went from a puddle to an ocean and she needed a liferaft. She needed someone who understood. 

She looked at the address in her hand, torn off a scrap piece of paper from her desk because she was unwilling, on some level, to give it its own page; some clinging hope that the address would be a dead end, a dud, and she could toss it in the trash where it belonged. Yet now she stood outside and knew it was real. Very _Highlander_ : an antique shop on the ground floor with apartments above, judging by the overlooking windows on the tall, brick building. The hard light of day seemed absorbed by the windows facing the street, their displays filled with items she’d seen in movies, but never in real life - an wicked looking battle axe, a two-foot tall obsidian statue of some Eastern deity with fangs, a glass case with other, smaller statues and totems. The shop was open, and she pushed her way inside before she could talk herself out of it. If she didn’t open her mouth, she was just another customer wandering in off the street. A bell above the door chimed, announcing her entrance.

To apparently no one in particular.

The shop was cold. Cooler than could be reasonably expected on a sunny So-Cal day, though there was no hum of air conditioning she could discern, and quiet. She glanced back at the door only to see it’s _“sorry, we’re closed!”_ sign staring back, and she knew then she hadn’t been mistaken. The place was open for business. What sort of business was yet to be decided. The hairs standing up on the back of her neck suggested it wasn’t just any old antique shop. Tapestries and painting lined the walls with small white price tags hanging off their frames. Various pieces of furniture, of all different ages and styles, dotted the room, and ahead lay a jewelry counter with a few odds and ends atop it beside an analog cash register. Behind that was an open door into another room, but she couldn’t see into it very far. 

“Hello?” she called out, feeling like a horror movie extra. “Anybody here?”

Chloe gave it another few seconds. She shook her head. It was a long shot anyway, a fool’s errand - what right did she have to muscle in on another person’s privacy, anyway, just to dig into the past that might be painful? She spun around.

A woman stood behind her. It could be Chloe herself in twenty years: her blonde hair was loose in a curtain around her shoulders, her blue eyes penetrating and curious, with a strong jaw and no nonsense stance. A harder Chloe. A Chloe who hadn’t had Trixie, perhaps; a Chloe who had been kicked off the job. Only the lines around her eyes betrayed her age, for her body was still frightfully fighting-fit. 

“What can I do for you?” she asked, not unkindly, but not exactly customer service friendly, either.

“I - um,” Chloe stammered, caught off guard. “You know what - it’s fine. I got lost. Sorry.” She made to move past, but the other woman didn’t budge. 

“You’re a cop, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, not really. Chloe reached, mentally, for her badge, but it wasn’t at her hip. She was as off-duty as she’d ever be. “How’d you -”

The woman smiled, but it was cold. “You think you’re the first freaked out cop to walk through my door?”

Chloe froze. 

“I’m Kate. But you already knew that.” She lifted her chin to direct over Chloe’s shoulder. “Let’s go in back. You never know who’s gonna show up. Not at night, anyway. Still got a couple solid hours left before the really scary ones come out.”

She said it like it was a joke, but her words still chilled Chloe to the bone. She followed her around the counter to a makeshift breakroom, complete with old dining room table, TV, and kitchenette. “What’s your name?” she asked, directing Chloe to sit at the round table. 

“Chloe. Decker,” she added. ‘Detective Chloe Decker.” As though saying it made it more firm in either of their minds.

“Decker,” Kate repeated, thoughtful. Her back might’ve been to Chloe, but she got the distinct feeling she was being carefully watched.

“My dad was John Decker. He was on the force around the same time you were. Out of the 0-9.”

“Hollywood. Fun,” said Kate dryly. “Not my beat.” She placed two tall glasses of water on the table before reaching into a cupboard. “Let me guess. Followed in Daddy’s footsteps?” 

Chloe didn’t feel comfortable answering. Kate returned with two smaller glasses - both eerily familiar, being that which often graced Lucifer’s hand - and a half-full bottle of cheap whiskey. “Don’t worry. I did the same thing.” She sat, then gestured to the bottle. “Figured you’d need that. So. Spill. What was it? Vamp? Demon? They come in all sorts, you know. Fanged. Horny.”

Chloe snorted. Horney was right. But - vamp? As in _vampire_? That was a new one. Her ocean just became water world, and Chloe reached for the bottle. “My partner,” she started, deciding to might as well spill the means - that was what she came here for, right? “I don't really know what he is. Not really. He never denied being… ” _The Devil._ Not something she really wanted to open with. “And I knew, pretty much right away, that he was different. Weird, annoying, obnoxious, sure. But he made me a better detective so I took the good with the… metaphors. I guess I wanted to be blind.” Her hand shook as she poured.

Kate watched her toss the drink back before speaking. “No. At least not as much as anybody else. We’re not programmed to _see._ We like our fairy tales, even when they get us killed. Nobody wants to admit the truth of what’s out there.”

Chloe huffed out a laugh. “And what’s that? Angels? Demons?”

Kate grabbed the bottle and poured Chloe another drink before dashing some in her own glass. “Angels. They always get you into this mess.” She drank it down without so much as a grimace. “Listen, detective. There are things in this city, in the world, that only make sense if you take the evidence at face value. Stop trying to make it fit and start letting the world get scary, cause that’ll be what keeps you alive. It’s so much bigger, and terrifying, and more beautiful out there than you can ever imagine.”

Chloe’s whirlwind mind paused. _More beautiful._

“So what’s this partner of yours?”

“What?” she asked.

“What is he.” She snorted. “You know, back in my day, even talking about the supernatural got you kicked off the force. Now they’ve got freaks on the payroll?”

Chloe stiffened. “He’s not really that.” _A freak._ “On the payroll. Sort of. He’s a consultant. He owns a club downtown.”

“Known them too,” Kate said. “Sometimes it’s like every other storefront’s been taken over by demons.”

“He’s not a demon,” Chloe quickly corrected, irked. She shook her head at her strong reaction. “Though his bartender is. I guess.”

Kate waited for more, silently pouring herself another drink.

“He’s… _God_. No, I don't mean that _literally,_ " she quickly corrected, at Kate's cocked eyebrow. "He's just - himself. Hard to describe. Charismatic. Always out for a good time, but always concerned that other people are having a good time, too. I thought he had been, I don’t know. Beaten, as a kid. Something traumatic enough to rewrite his brain, make him cling onto fantasies, but he was seeing a therapist so I let it go. Interfered with our investigations more often than not but the delusions always seemed otherwise… harmless. But they weren’t. Delusions. That was all me.”

Kate swirled the amber liquid in her glass. Chloe recognized her silence for what it was: an interrogation technique. Let the silence fill the room till the other person wanted to break it. 

“Jealous,” she continued, remembering Lucifer’s reaction to Pierce. Or… whoever he was supposed to be. “Possessive, but never controlling. A strong desire to do the right thing.” She took in a deep breath. “Desire. That’s always been his _thing._ Your deepest darkest desire. Some mojo he has.”

“Like a psychic ability?” Kate asked.

 _I’m not a Jedi._ Chloe laughed, remembering. It felt like the first time she’d laughed in days. “Nope. Not a mind reader. Just able to draw out what people don’t want to say. Handy in getting confessions.” Her smile faded. “Like I said. I needed him. I _used_ him.” 

The thought made her sick, now.

Kate sat back. “Did he want to be used?”

Chloe startled, but refused to show it. “He’s the one who muscled his way onto the force. There was a death, at his club. A singer, some protege he wanted to avenge.”

“And did he?”

“Yeah.”

“And stuck around after?”

Chloe nodded.

“Then I suggest you quit feeling guilty, cause it sounds like he made his decision to stay.” Chloe touched her glass, but didn’t drink. “In my experience, those things out there - they’re only in it for themselves. Which, hey. That’s how everybody is, right? That’s why the world is the way it is. So if you got somebody on your side that’s interested in justice, in helping people, you keep them there.” She looked down. “Took me a long time to accept that not everything’s black and white. Hell, maybe I still don’t. But there’s no black and white, not really. It’s all just gray.”

“So where do you draw the line?” Chloe asked. 

Kate chuckled, but it was dry and without humor. “You’re not getting it, detective. The line is gone. You can draw it between humans and other things, sure. And you’ll find yourself alone more often than not, because your regular guy on the street isn’t equipped to handle this stuff. I had this friend, once. Well, not really a friend, more like an informant pain in my ass. When I found out what he was, what he’d done, that was it. He was gone, out of my life as much as I could. Didn’t matter to me that he helped me find killers or tried to keep people safe. He was a monster, and that was that.”

Chloe stared at her glass. She’d been treating Lucifer just the same for weeks.

“Then he saved my life.”

Chloe met her eyes. They were both far away and here, now. It was a look she’d seen on her partner many times. 

“He shouldn’t have been able to, and I’m not talking morally. I mean _physically impossible._ But he was there, and he did. And then I learned to listen. So I’m telling you that, now. You can add up all the actions, the good and the bad, and never get the full picture. That’s why you gotta _listen._ Unless he like, eats babies or something.”

That startled a laugh out of Chloe. “No, definitely not.”

“Good. Cause there are those, too. Drink that,” she ordered. Chloe obeyed, tossing the whiskey back with a grimace. “Now go talk to your partner, and leave me your card. What’s his name, by the way? In case I hear anything on the streets.”

Chloe stood, then smiled. “Lucifer,” she said simply.

Then she walked out the door.


End file.
